Molecular characterization and antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from patients with diarrhea in Korea between the years 2007 and 2022

• Published in: Food science and biotechnology Vol. 33; no. 8; pp. 1965 - 1974
• Main Authors: Bak, Young-Seok, Park, Jun-Young, Kim, Jung-Beom, Cho, Seung-Hak
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Nature Singapore 01.06.2024; Springer Nature B.V; 한국식품과학회
• Subjects: Antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Diarrhea; Drug resistance; Epidemiology; Food Science; Gene expression; Genes; Genotypes; Infectious diseases; Multilocus sequence typing; Nucleotide sequence; Nutrition; PCR; Research Article; Resistance to antibiotics; Septic shock; Staphylococcal enterotoxin F; Staphylococcal enterotoxin G; Staphylococcal enterotoxin I; Staphylococcus aureus; Strains (organisms); Toxic shock syndrome; Toxins; 식품과학; Diarrhea; Antibiotic resistance; Staphylococcus aureus
• ISSN: 1226-7708; 2092-6456
• DOI: 10.1007/s10068-023-01478-9

To investigate the molecular characteristics and antibiotic resistance of Staphylococcus aureus isolates from patients with diarrhea in Korea, 327 S. aureus strains were collected between 2007 and 2022. The presence of staphylococcal enterotoxin (SE) and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 (TSST-1) genes in S. aureus isolates was determined by PCR. The highest expression of the TSST-1 gene was found in the GIMNO type (43.1% of GIMNO type). GIMNO type (Type I) refers to each staphylococcal enterotoxin (SE) gene gene (initials of genes): G =  seg ; I =  sei ; M =  selm ; N =  seln ; O =  selo . Moreover, Type I isolates showed a significantly higher resistance to most antibiotics. A total of 195 GIMNO-type S. aureus strains were analyzed using multilocus sequence typing (MLST), and 18 unique sequence types (STs) were identified. The most frequent sequence type was ST72 (36.9%), followed by ST5 (22.1%) and ST30 (16.9%). Interestingly, ST72 strains showed a higher prevalence of MRSA than the other STs. In conclusion, our results were the first reported for S. aureus strains in Korea, which significantly expanded S. aureus genotype information for the surveillance of pathogenic S. aureus and may provide important epidemiological information to resolve several infectious diseases caused by S. aureus .